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Sam held up her camera and snapped a picture. Danny didn’t realize how cool it was that his parents had a laboratory like some kind of mad scientists, or modern Frankensteins (who had actually graduated college), but Sam did, and she knew that as much as he hated it right now, he would be glad to have pictures to look back on when he was older.
“Go further in, I want to get some good shots,” Sam said. Danny nodded and turned to walk further into the portal, his white jumpsuit contrasting brightly against the darkness of the empty portal.
“All these inventions are pretty cool, even if they don’t work,” Tucker said, looking at some of the mysterious devices occupying tables and shelves.
“Yeah,” Sam agreed, turning to look at Tucker. “I don’t know why Danny didn’t take us down here here earlier.”
There was a faint click and suddenly the room lit up bright green. Instantly an anguished scream ripped through the room, shrill, deafening, agonizing. Sam’s blood ran cold and she turned on her heel to see an eerie green barrier, swirling like a deadly poison in a witch’s cauldron.
The screaming stopped but she still heard it ringing in her ears, rattling and echoing in her brain. It seemed to reverberate with swirls of hellish green light.
“D-Danny?” Sam called, her breath catching in her throat. She felt cold lines on her cheeks as the shape of the portal burned into her eyes. How had it turned on? It wasn’t supposed to work. Nothing the Fentons made were supposed to work. Why was this one on?
Why wasn’t Danny answering?
“Quick, where’s the plug?!” She barely heard Tucker say over the pounding in her ears. Her head turned stiffly to see Tucker kneeling on the ground, frantically searching through the tangle of wires connected to the portal.
Sam blinked and ran over to him, sifting through the cords with shaking hands. They had to turn the portal off, unplug it, save Danny, get him out. Tears splashed onto her hands as she tossed cords aside. They had to save him.
She finally found the plug with a triumphant gasp, and yanked on it. It stayed stuck. She yanked on it again, pulling hard against the wire. It wouldn’t budge. “Tucker!” She yelled desperately, pulling at the plug, trying to wrench it free.
Tucker grabbed the other end of the cord and they both pulled. With a soft woomph the plugs came apart and the green glow faded from the room, bathing them in the dim darkness of the lab that had been unoccupied for days.
They both turned slowly to look at the gaping hole in the wall. If either of them had dared to breathe they would have smelled the pungent odor of charred flesh and burnt hair.
Lying unmoving in the empty portal, black and shriveled, was Danny’s corpse.